Audio CD review:
Iced Earth - Dark Genesis

Iced Earth - Dark Genesis

Band: Iced Earth Title: Dark Genesis Rating: Release Date: 2002-03-05 Media: Audio CD Tracks: 1: Enter the Realm 2: Colors 3: Nightmares 4: Curse the Sky 5: Solitude - Iced Earth, Schaffer, Jon 6: Iced Earth 7: Iced Earth 8: Written on the Walls 9: Colors 10: Curse the Sky 11: Life and Death 12: Solitude - Iced Earth, Schaffer, Jon 13: The Funeral 14: When the Night Falls - Iced Earth, Schaffer, Jon 15: Angels Holocaust - Iced Earth, Schaffer, Jon 16: Stormrider 17: The Path I Choose 18: Before the Vision 19: Mystical End - Iced Earth, Schaffer, Jon 20: Desert Rain 21: Pure Evil 22: Reaching the End - Iced Earth, Schaffer, Jon 23: Travel in Stygian - Iced Earth, Schaffer, Jon 24: Burnt Offerings 25: Last December 26: Diary - Iced Earth, Abell, Dave 27: Brainwashed 28: Burning Oasis 29: Creator Failure 30: The Pierced Spirit - Iced Earth, Abell 31: Dante's Inferno 32: Burnin' for You - Iced Earth, Meltzer, Richard 33: Cities on Flame With Rock & Roll - Iced Earth, Meltzer, Richard 34: Highway to Hell - Iced Earth, Young 35: It's a Long Way to the Top - Iced Earth, Young 36: Black Sabbath - Iced Earth, Iommi, Tony 37: Creatures of the Night - Iced Earth, Stanley, Paul 38: God of Thunder - Iced Earth, Stanley, Paul 39: The Number of the Beast - Iced Earth, Harris, Steve 40: Halloed Be Thy Name - Iced Earth, Harris, Steve 41: Screaming for Vengeance - Iced Earth, Downing, K.K. 42: Dead Babies - Iced Earth, Bruce, Michael

Once essential, now only for die-hards Well, here's what the box set has to offer: Disc 1 - The ultra-rare Enter the Realm demos, remastered. Since you're checking out the listing for the out of print, and fairly expensive Dark Genesis box set, I'll assume you're already familiar with Iced Earth, and are wondering whether this set is worth buying. This is the earliest recorded Iced Earth material, and unless you grabbed one of the initial 1,000 copies, the Dark Genesis box set is your only chance to hear them. Disc 2 - Iced Earth's self-titled debut album, remastered. Sure the vocals are a bit weak, but this is still an important milestone in the band's history. The remastered sound is a big help. Disc 3 - Night of the Stormrider, remastered. Still no Matt Barlow, but many Iced Earth fans call this one a favorite. It definitely helped the band get some much needed exposure. Disc 4 - Burnt Offerings, remastered. Enter Matt Barlow. This album gets trashed a bit, but I consider it one of the band's best. Matt Barlow's distinctive voice adds so much power and intensity to the band that everyone else comes off as inferior. Plus, the epic track Dante's Inferno flat out rules. Disc 5 - Tribute to the Gods. Sure you can buy this one everywhere now, but for a while, the only way to get it was to buy this box set. This set of covers pays tribute to KISS, AC/DC, Blue Oyster Cult, Iron Maiden, and others, and is the last Iced Earth album to feature Matt Barlow on vocals. The box set also comes with a detailed booklet that covers the bands history. The book is written from a total fanboy perspective, so if you're looking for anything other than absolute Iced Earth/Jon Schaffer worship, you may want to skip it. If you're in the "Jon Schaffer is God" camp, it will no doubt reaffirm your beliefs. If you think he's something of an egomaniac, it will verify that opinion as well. At the time it was released, Dark Genesis was the only way to get remastered Iced Earth albums, the only way to get Enter the Realm, and the only way to get Tribute to the Gods. As such, it was a must-have for all serious Iced Earth fans. Since you can get all but the Enter the Realm disc elsewhere now, Dark Genesis is only for the most die-hard Iced Earth fans. ******************** 20 STAR ESSENTIAL ICED RATING!!! Oh yeah . Has all original CD artowrk that was meant to be on the releases but wasn't, the very RARE Enter The Realm demo which got them signed and cannot be bought anywhere else, a full color book containing the entire history of Iced Earth, all discs remastered with the sound they were meant to have, and the KILLER cover CD, Tribute To The Gods, containing the best covers I've heard in years. . . IT'S ICED EARTH! Need I say more? * 20 STAR ESSENTIAL RATING FROM SCRAGGY'S TOMB! THE BEST BOX SET SINCE AC/DC'S BONFIRE! Cheers. One of the best boxed sets of all time! So even if you already have all the albums that are on here you should buy this so you can see the differences, some of which are good, some not so good. The reason I say this is that, unlike most boxed sets, the songs on this have been totally remastered and reworked. I'll go down and give an album by album review. Enter the Realm-I didn't think I would like this but I actually enjoyed listening to it. I like the song 'nightmares' although I have no idea what the singer is saying at one point during the song. I think the lyrics as written in the album liner are "I am the god of fear" but it sounds like he's saying "Me, me, the goblin beer" or something like that. Iced Earth-This album sounds better than the original but the singer is still awful, though in a good way. No amount of remixing is going to fix that. Night of the stormrider-My favorite Iced Earth album redone. I like the new intro to 'angels holocaust' but the remixed stormrider is not too high on my list. The echo effect is unintentionally hilarious. "Fight on, grab on, stormrider, stormrider. . . rider! That last 'rider' always cracks me up. I like the version of 'pure evil'. They eliminated the goofy robotic voice at the end of the song and made it sound more natural. Burnt Offerings-This album is probably the most improved of the three. The echo effects in the title track actually improve the song(at least to me) and the mixing seems to have given the album more balance. I also like the double bass at the end of 'Dante's inferno'. Tribute to the gods-A good tribute album. I particularly enjoyed their rendition of 'dead babies' one of my favorite Alice Cooper songs. 'Creatures of the night' and 'hallowed be thy name' are pretty good too. Another cool thing about this album is the artwork which is very flashy and grand(Though the artwork for Burnt Offerings seems a bit cheesy and cliche)It looks like something from a comic book or graphic novel. At any rate if you like Iced earth or even just like metal you should buy this set. Iced Earth: Titans of The Metal World Probably the best one out there, probably beaten only by 'Live Sh!t: Binge and Purge. Wow, is this box set good. ' It includes everything: The demo that got Iced Earth started in the first place ('Enter The Realm'), the mighty debut album ('s/t') the awe-inspiring sophmore offering ('Night of the Stormrider'), the brooding third release ('Burnt Offerings'), AND a tribute CD filled with amazing covers by Blue Oyster Cult, Black Sabbath, Kiss, Iron Maiden, and Alice Cooper ('Tribute To The Gods'). This box set is jam-packed with everything a new fan of IE needs. It's even worth it for seasoned old fans too. I must complain about a few things first. My biggest complaint the lack of CD booklets. None whatsoever. Grr. My only other complaint is that Jon Schaffer, in addition to putting his name down as 'rhythm guitars' states in a huge sentence 'Jon Schaffer does all rhythm guitars. ' on all CD descriptions. . . Why would you put that? Useless info, is what it is. Jon is an excellent guitarist, and excuse me saying so, but I think he's getting a little full of himself. No offense to you, though, Jon. *I can't give band member descriptions due to lack of CD booklets and I'm writing this at work, so I'm not near that huge book that come with the box set. * This box set is a somewhat cheap and great introductory for new fans. I'm now in the process of buying the original 3 CDs, because of, again, lack of booklets, and Century Media will stop selling the original copies of those CD's too. Only get it if you have money to burn Sure the sound quality is improved and it plays louder on your sterio, but that's about it. It's a great box set and all, but honestly the cd's really arn't that different from the originals. The best reason I've found for owning it is for the tribute cd. So if you're a hardcore Iced Earth fan it's a good buy. Other wise just wait for the tribute cd to be released on it's own. You can see a complete list of all Iced Earth discography, or go back to the Iced Earth tabs